Reflection
by grab bag
Summary: Natia Brosca's encounter with a ghost from her past in the Gauntlet. Implied unrequited Leske/F!Brosca.


At first, Natia Brosca does not trust her eyes. More magic, she assumes. The previously unexplainable stopped surprising her long ago, and her immediate reaction is to call out to the demon or mage she knows must be nearby, to tell them to give it up and just face her now. What she sees cannot possibly be real. Surely it will vanish. Surely she is mistaken.

But then she considers why there would be another dwarf in the temple of Andraste. And her curiosity bests her, damn it, it always did, and she approaches the figure she thought she'd never see again. And it...no, _he_, he turns to her, and speaks to her as if it were the most natural thing in Orzammar.

"What's shapin'?"

There is no way. It is impossible. The illusion is too perfect. No mage, no desire demon could know what she is noticing about him, could recreate it so exactly. The barely perceptible slant to his braids that betray his dominant hand. The way his fingers remain slightly curled at his side, tense, ready to reach for a blade or lift a purse or blacken an eye. The cocky slouch to his shoulders. The shift of his weight. All these things Natia had learned over years of working with him, watching out for him. Things she'd tried not to think about but are now forced upon her, and are so comfortable to her eyes that it hurts, makes her feel hollow. She almost reaches out for him, but the habit of denying that particular impulse has somehow remained.

She thinks before she speaks (the fact of _that _is proof enough he was right, she's been out of Dust Town too long, truly sun-touched), and realizes what she must be seeing. The Guardian knew about Rica. It stands that they would have seen him as well.

"Leske." Her voice catches. When she says it, it will make it true. "You're dead."

"No thanks to you, _salroka_," he replies. Natia hears the anger in the word, a way he'd said it many times before, after narrow scrapes and desperate escapes and clashes with him over how much to hide from Beraht. In the past when he took that tone she'd tell him if he didn't like her decisions he could go suck a nug. But then he'd never been dead before.

"I'm sorry," is all she can say now.

He, or whatever it is that looks so much like him (a spirit maybe? She'd been in the Fade herself only a month before after all, to everyone's surprise, where stranger things had happened), he tells her he doesn't blame her. It was their only rule, to survive, wasn't it? It was the only thing they could ever count on each other for. They saw it all the time in the carta- if someone wasn't at your back, sooner or later they'd have a blade through your front. At best. Her mistake had been forgetting that when she stepped away, he'd needed to find someone to replace her. And he'd been right.

Doesn't stop it from hurting though. She survived Dust Town, she survived the Provings, she survived the Joining. But she hadn't survived him, and this is the proof.

He hands her something; she does not even look at it, afraid to take her eyes off him and lose him a third time.

"Goodbye, my friend. Remember me."

Natia can only nod. Leske fades away, and she does not move. Finally, Zevran places a hand on her shoulder, and Morrigan coughs, impatient. She is glad she did not say all the things she needed to, did not embarrass herself in front of some phantom and those looking to her for leadership. Whatever he gave her, she stuffs into a pocket. They press on.

She hasn't got time to mourn him. Never did.

It isn't until much later, ashes tucked safely away in a bag and the mountains far behind them, does she examine the thing he gave her. The amulet. A small, useless thing. A bauble. It is marked with a human symbol, something Leliana might recognize, but which means nothing to her. Probably not worth much coin either, not like the gaudy things Rica wears now, gifts from Bhelen, the king who lives and sits on the throne of Orzammar because Natia made it so. Why Leske or his shade should have given it is beyond her understanding. But the backing is silvered and winks at her, and for all her strength she cannot get rid of the sodding thing.

She closes the clasp behind her neck, feels a little better, more resilient. The amount of jewelry she has boosted in her lifetime is staggering, but she has only worn a single other piece so far. The new amulet clicks gently against the pendant she received after her Joining, the one thing in her life that offered her a way out, even as it condemned her to death. Dust Town might have stuck to the skin, but being a Grey Warden stuck to the blood.

It remains around her neck until the night Natia asks Zevran to pierce her ear, and she realizes she does not need it any more. The next morning it is wrapped in cloth and placed at the bottom of her pack. Zev asks her what she plans on doing with it, and the answer comes easily.

"I thought I'd send it to little Endrin."

Politics in Orzammar being what they are, she figures her nephew could use some guidance in survival.


End file.
